


Heroine

by LoveChilde



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Community: purimgifts, Episode Tag, Gen, Light Angst, Purim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 21:30:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3462725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveChilde/pseuds/LoveChilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After finding out the truth about her mother, Nerys is having a hard time wrapping her mind around it. A tale of an ancient human queen gives her new perspective. Episode tag for 6X17, Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heroine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fenellaevangela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenellaevangela/gifts).



For the first day and a half after Nerys comes back from her trip to Bajor, it feels like the five years since the Occupation ended never happened. She knows she’s not really hungry; her visit with the Orb of Time, though it felt like months, lasted only half a day, and physically, she’s as well fed and rested as she’s been for years now, but the sensation of gnawing hunger remains. After a day or so, though, she stops jumping at shadows, and it becomes easier to pass a Cardassian in the hallways without flinching or snarling. 

The nights are harder. She lies awake, thinking about what she’d learned, what she’d almost done. She remembers Dukat’s fingers on her mother’s face, on her arms, and the memory makes her sick. She imagines every Cardassian she sees with Bajoran ‘comfort women’, and sets the Holosuite to ‘private’ so she can vent her rage safely. 

The third evening after her return finds her at Quark’s. She can still smell traces of lilacs in her quarters though she threw the flowers away, and no amount of air freshener helps. She stares into her glass, the noise of the bar like distant waves on a shore around her, lost in thought. A burst of laughter pulls her sharply out of her musings and she looks up and to the side at a group of people, Starfleet and civilians, who appear to be having some kind of party. In the distance she can see Odo keeping an eye on them, but despite the alcohol and general high spirits, they don’t seem to be rowdy. 

“What are they doing?” She asks Quark, who throws half a glance in their direction and shrugs.

“Some kind of Earth celebration, I think. A religious thing; you know they have too many to remember.” 

She does know; she finds it interesting, when it isn’t annoying. One of the Starfleet personnel, an engineer, notices her watching and waves her over.

“Major Kira! Come join us!” 

She protests, but they draw her in; she lets them, seeking the comfort of a group of people. Strangers move to make room for her on the couches, with much giggling and jostling. “Ensign Azoulay.” She nods at the engineer, who grins back and nudges a plate of triangular pastries in her direction. “What are you celebrating? Quark said it was a holiday?”

“Yes, tonight’s Purim.” The ensign smiles back, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder, “Or at least, it is on Earth, and we celebrate by Earth dates. It gets complicated, but Starfleet Command are very good about sending out schedules and- and that’s totally not what you asked, isn’t it?” She finishes with a breathless laugh, and Nerys can’t help but smile along. “Dave, you explain it.”

Dave, a bearded young man wearing an odd sort of cap that covers only the top of his head, launches into an explanation of the holiday. Someone fills Nerys’ glass, then fills it again, and two different people insist she try the pastries - which are crumbly and filled with a sweet paste - as the story of the holiday unfolds. 

“So, your people were facing disaster? Genocide?” The alcohol frees her tongue and makes her ask questions she doesn’t normally ask strangers.

“Yeah. Not for the first time, or the last, either,” Dave nods somberly, and the others exchange glances, levity lost. “But,” he continues, “every time so far, they’ve failed. So we celebrate that.”

Bajorans haven’t had enough time to generate celebratory traditions, yet. This group has had thousands of years to recover- not so, Bajor. But the story rings oddly familiar in Nerys’ ears, and she listens, frowning, as Dave ends the tale. 

“And so, brave Queen Esther changed the King’s heart and saved the Jews.” 

“She went to the king- to her enemy’s bed?” Too close to home, for something so very far away and long ago.

“She made the sacrifice, for all her people’s sake.” Dave nods, “Queen Esther was a great heroine. She gave herself to the king, who was a hard and dangerous man, and stopped a massacre, and improved the king’s attitude towards the Jews, at great risk to herself.” 

“The king could have any woman, but he chose Esther. She made sure he’d choose her, so no other girl would have to suffer, after he humiliated his first queen and cast her aside.” Someone adds, and Nerys has long since stopped trying to remember names. “She held his attention for months and made him love her, so he was willing to give her any gift she wanted, even half his kingdom. She saved thousands of people.”

Thousands saved, but how many died while Esther was celebrating in the palace? But did she celebrate? Or was every day and ongoing struggle, always wary, always cautious of a misstep, a word out of place that might bring her fragile existence crashing down? Always in the shadow of a man who ordered executions with a flick of a finger, with the fate of her people hanging in the balance? 

“This is how you remember her? A heroine?” She asks, and her voice sounds far away, distracted. Ensign Azoulay answers this time.

“She used what she had- her beauty and her wits, and she saved the Jews of Persia. Plenty of people did far less who had more to work with.”

_Plenty of people did far less who had more to work with._

The words follow Nerys home, and haunt her through the night. Collaborator whore, or a heroine who did the best she could with what she had? Both, perhaps? 

She stays awake all night, writing her mother’s story; the true one, this time. She does her best to present her as impartially as possible. She sends it to the Bajoran reclamation society, and signs off, drained but maybe more at peace, with the taste of sweet wine and sweeter crumbly pastries still in her mouth. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Purim! Sorry about the art...


End file.
